A dozen quotes for the lawyer

Here the dozen legal quotes which I live on:

1. [When advised not to become a lawyer because the profession was overcrowded:] "There is always room at the top."

- Daniel Webster, quoted in Edward Latham, Famous Sayings and Their Authors 65 (1904)
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2."Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended."

- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Andre Limozin, 22 Dec. 1787, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson 12:451 (Julian P. Boyd ed. 1955)

It is ignorance of the law rather than knowledge of it that leads to litigation.

(Cicero (106-43 BC) De Legibus, bk. I, ch. VI)
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3. "Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling never fails of employment in it."

- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 22 June 1792, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson 6:92 (Paul L. Ford ed. 1895)
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4. "Our profession is good, if practiced in the spirit of it; it is damnable fraud and iniquity when its true spirit is supplied by a spirit of mischief-making and money catching. "

- Daniel Webster, Letter to James Hervey Bingham, 19 Jan. 1806, in Papers of Daniel Webster: Legal Papers 1.69 (Alfred S. Konefsky & Andrew J. King eds. 1982)
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5. "Your law may be perfect, your knowledge of human affairs may be such as to enable you to apply it with wisdom and skill, and yet without individual acquaintance with men, their haunts and habits, the pursuit of the profession becomes difficult, slow, and expensive. A lawyer who does not know men is handicapped."

- Louis D. Brandeis, Letter to William H. Dunbar, 2 Feb. 1893, in Letters of Louis D. Brandeis 1:108 (Melvin I. Urofsky & David W. Levy eds. 1971)
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6. "Courage is the most important attribute of a lawyer. It is more important than competence or vision. It can never be an elective in any law school. It can never be de-limited, dated or outworn, and it should pervade the heart, the halls of justice and the chambers of the mind."

- Robert F. Kennedy, Speech at University of San Francisco Law School, San Francisco, 29 Sept. 1962, quoted in Sue G. Hall, The Quotable Robert F. Kennedy 111 (1967)
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7. "Anyone who believes a better day dawns when lawyers are eliminated bears the burden of explaining who will take their place. Who will protect the poor, the injured, the victims of negligence, the victims of racial violence?"

- John J. Curtin, Jr., Remarks to American Bar Association, Atlanta, 13 Aug. 1991, quoted in Time, 26 Aug. 1991, at 54
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8. "Lawyers, Preachers, and Tomtits Eggs, there are more of them hatch'd than come to perfection."

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin 1:354 (Leonard W. Labaree ed. 1959)
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9. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labour pertaining to it which
can then be done.

-(Referred to in the Law Society Journal. "These are not the words of a
modern time management consultant, but of Abraham Lincoln in 1850.")
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10. Discourage litigation, Persuade your neighbours to compromise whenever you can ...
As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man ...
There will be business enough.

(Abraham Lincoln, Notes from Law Lectures, 1st July, 1850 quoted in
The Court is Open by Bartley)
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11.I started in life with the belief that our profession in its highest walks afforded the most noble employment in which any man could engage and I am of the same opinion still ... I believed a man could be of greater service to his country and his race in the foremost ranks of the Bar than anywhere else and I think so still. To be a priest and possibly a high priest in the Temple of Justice to serve at her altar and aid in her administration, to maintain and defend those inalienable rights of life, liberty and property upon which the safety of society depends, to succour the oppressed and to defend the innocent to maintain constitutional rights against all violations whether by the executive, by the legislature, by the relentless power of the press or
worse of all by the ruthless rapacity of an unbridled majority. To rescue the scapegoat and restore him to his proper place in the world - all this seemed to me to furnish a field worthy of any man's ambition.

(Joseph Choate the 21st President of the Chicago Bar Association)
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12.Please remember that law and sense are not always the same.

(Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) in N.B. Sen, Wit and Wisdom
of India, 1961)

(Compliled from diverse sources which have been acknowledged)